Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am requesting a credit standing in ECON 351, a course I took in the Fall semester of 2017. I believe that my grade was influenced by a psychological challenge stemming from family problems. In November 2017 my estranged mother contacted me for the first time in months to tell me she had laryngeal cancer. Not talking to my mother had already taken a toll on me and I had been worker with various counsellor, through Good2Talk, to deal with my mental health and ensure it did not affect my school work. For the majority of the fall semester I achieved high grades in all 5 of my courses. However, when I was contacted by my mother, I found it hard to go to class and interact with people. This particularly affected by grades in ECON 351 as no material was provided online. The reason I believe I should be granted a credit standing is that I was doing significantly better in the course and was unable to maintain my academic standing during my extenuating circumstances in which I isolated myself and felt completely alone. I was able to maintain relatively stable grades in my other 4 classes because of the substantial amount of material provided online. As a result, I did much of that work from my room and was able to maintain relatively strong grades; however, I quickly fell behind in ECON 351 because material was only presented in class. In conjunction with my learning disability, I found it hard to perform well in ECON 351 in November and December 2017. This particularly shown in my poor final exam grade. I have continued to seek help and have recently found a more stable counselor at the Queen¿¿s Counselling Service. Fortunately, I am in a much better space now and am able to thrive in my classes, including the applied version of ECON 351, in which I got an A+, but this extenuating circumstance put enormous strain on me and led to an academic result that is not indicative of my knowledge of the course. As a result, I am requesting that you grant me a credit standing for ECON 351 due to my extenuating circumstances stemming from family issues. I am confident that I am in a better space and am able to interact strongly in a classroom environment now thanks to the strong support group I have built and the monthly visits to a counsellor.